Saks Fifth Avenue faced a cyber security attack resulting in tens of
thousands of customers having their information exposed on an unsecured
website.

“We take this matter seriously,” said a spokesman for Hudson’s Bay, Saks'
parent company. “We want to reassure our customers that no credit, payment
or password information was ever exposed. The security of our customers is
of utmost priority and we are moving quickly and aggressively to resolve
the situation, which is limited to a low-single-digit percentage of e-mail
addresses. We have resolved any issue related to customer phone numbers,
which was an even smaller percent.”

According to Buzzfeed the sites have an inconsistent approach to web
encryption, protecting certain pages (such as the login page) but not
others. Someone on the same local network could grab unencrypted web
traffic and potentially use it to compromise an account.

Cyber Security has become a major issue for retailers. UK retail body
British Retail Consortium recently published a step-by-step guide on how to
manage cyber security threats. With the digital market continuously
growing, retailers have to stay one step ahead of potential cyber security
risks to protect their customers.